TODAY IN HISTORY: Jan. 11

Today is Friday, Jan. 11, the 11th day of 2013. There are 354 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 11, 1913, the first enclosed sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th National Automobile Show in New York.

On this date:

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In 1805, the Michigan Territory was created by an act of Congress.

In 1861, Alabama became the fourth state to withdraw from the Union.

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon National Monument (it became a national park in 1919).

In 1927, the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was proposed during a dinner of Hollywood luminaries at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began an 18-hour trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., that made her the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.

In 1942, Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Imperial Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies.

In 1943, the United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.

In 1963, the Beatles' single "Please Please Me" (B side "Ask Me Why") was released in Britain by Parlophone.

In 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report that said smoking may be hazardous to one's health.

In 1972, East Pakistan changed its name to Bangladesh.

In 1977, France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

In 1995, 52 people were killed when a Colombian airliner crashed as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena -- however, a 9-year-old girl, Erika Delgado, survived.

Ten years ago: Calling the death penalty process "arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral," Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates, clearing his state's death row two days before leaving office.

Five years ago: Bank of America said it would buy Countrywide Financial for $4.1 billion in stock in a deal rescuing the country's biggest mortgage lender. Authorities in Jacksonville, N.C., found the remains of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach in the yard of Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, a comrade she had accused of raping her. (Laurean, who fled to Mexico, was later arrested and sent back to the U.S.; he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.) Former Olympic track gold medalist Marion Jones was sentenced to six months in prison for lying to investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam. Sir Edmund Hillary, who conquered Mount Everest, died in Auckland, New Zealand, at age 88.

One year ago: Joran van der Sloot (YOHR'-uhn VAN'-dur-sloht), the longtime suspect in the still unsolved disappearance of American Natalee Holloway in Aruba, pleaded guilty in Lima to the 2010 murder of a Peruvian woman, Stephany Flores; he was sentenced to 28 years in prison. French TV cameraman Gilles Jacquier was killed while filming a pro-government rally in Homs, Syria; he was the first Western journalist to die in the Syrian uprising.